


Don't Freak Out, But...

by satincolt



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Albino Lio Fotia, Bugs & Insects, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Nonbinary Lio Fotia, Post-Canon, The Promare Didn't Leave (Promare), Trans Lio Fotia, implied gueira/meis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:01:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26153863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satincolt/pseuds/satincolt
Summary: Meis and Gueira both know Lio’s problem with bugs is bad, but they never realized it was quite this bad.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	Don't Freak Out, But...

**Author's Note:**

> based on a true story my sister told me. it's not at all relevant to the plot (lol very generous to call this a plot), but yes Lio is trans nb and albino. oh and also yeah he's old and english. we just really live for those headcanons.

Meis and Gueira both know Lio’s problem with bugs is bad, but they never realized it was quite _this_ bad. It had never presented much of a problem while on the run in the desert, but now that they’ve all “retired” to a more temperate area, bugs are a pressing daily issue for the former Mad Burnish Boss.

It’s just the three of them on a walk through a nice woodsy area not far from their government-awarded house, and they haven’t been outside for more than fifteen minutes under the verdant canopy. It’s an unseasonably cool August afternoon, the first of the vanguard of autumn days approaching. Though some people would have put on long sleeves or light sweatshirts for a walk today, the Burnish are all in short sleeves. They wear pretty much the same attire year-round because the Promare insulate them from extreme temperatures in either direction, but today is so balmy and they can’t resist the buttery feeling of the sun on their skin.

Gueira notices the caterpillars first. The little bug is a slightly brighter green than the leaf of the bush it’s on, and Gueira swoops in to pluck it up and examine it.

“Hey little dude,” he coos at it, holding it inches away from his face. Ahead of him, Lio stops and looks over his shoulder to see what Gueira’s talking about, eyebrows arched inquisitively over his big, dark sunglasses. Next to Gueira, Meis leans in closely to examine the caterpillar too.

Lio’s expression turns to mild disgust once he realizes what his lieutenants are looking at. “How can you hold that thing so close to your faces?”

“It’s not gonna do anything,” Meis points out. Gueira pokes the bug gently and it ripples along the length of his finger. Lio shivers slightly.

“Well, what if it, ugh, I don’t know, _touches_ you?” Lio asks, wrapping his arms around himself.

“It’s already touching me,” Gueira says.

“No, I meant your face,” Lio rebuts.

“So what if it did?” Gueira says, then a shit-eating grin steals across his face. He raises his hand to his cheek and obediently, the caterpillar ripples off his finger and onto his cheek. Lio watches with nostrils flared in disgust as the bug makes its way to the significant landmark of Gueira’s nose. It ascends and pauses for rest after its climb on the bridge of Gueira’s prominent nose.

“Take that off your face right now,” Lio says with all the disdain of a matronly British governess and a tinge of the accent, too. Gueira laughs at him.

“Nah, he’s my friend. Friends can touch my face,” Gueira says, and Meis snorts.

“Well, I suppose I’m not your friend, because I’ll never touch your face again,” Lio says haughtily. A breeze ruffles the leaves above their heads and sends some water droplets pattering down onto the underbrush. One of the water droplets lands on the trail next to Meis and the color of it--vibrant yellow-green--catches his eye. He glances at it and realizes it’s not water at all, it’s a caterpillar same as the one on Gueira’s nose, that was shaken out of the tree by the breeze. 

_Oh no,_ he thinks calmly, letting nothing show on his face. Lio and Gueira are still ribbing each other, Gueira becoming more insufferable with each remark and Lio retreating further into his _“I’m very uncomfortable therefore I will become more aggressively British and buttoned-up in order to hide it”_ mode.

“I didn’t know you were so prissy about bugs, Boss, or I’d’a caught some desert spiders and scorpions and kept ‘em as pets on the lam for ya,” Gueira leers, the caterpillar now migrated up to his forehead like a unibrow.

“Eugh,” is Lio’s very articulate response, complete with a double-chin grimace.

“Let’s just walk,” Meis cuts in to try to keep the peace.

“Let’s,” Lio agrees, turning on his heel, arms still tightly folded.

“Fuck,” Meis sighs emotionlessly. On the back of Lio’s head, wriggling around in his pale green hair, is a neon-green caterpillar. Gueira notices it a scant second after Meis does and Meis has to slap his hand over Gueira’s mouth to prevent the screech of laughter that would make Lio go nuclear. The caterpillar falls off Gueira’s forehead.

“Dude,” Gueira whines behind Meis’s hand, licking his palm to try to get Meis to let him go and pick the bug up again. Meis does not react to the licking. He stares levelly at Gueira for a solid two seconds before Gueira sighs through his nose in defeat. Slowly, Meis removes his hand. He increases his pace just enough that he’s right behind Lio--uncomfortably close, but Lio’s already uncomfortable enough that he doesn’t notice immediately. Meis makes a cautious grab for the little rubbery bug in Lio’s hair.

“What?” Lio barks, whipping his head around at Meis.

Meis grits his teeth, bracing himself. “Caterpillar in your hair,” he grunts.

 _“What?”_ Lio screeches, frantically clawing at his hair. He doubles over and rakes hooked fingers through his hair, screaming incoherently and thrashing his head from side to side. His sunglasses go flying across the trail; Gueira lunges to retrieve them.

“Boss! Boss, stop! Let me get it out!” Meis shouts, trying to stop the chaos and locate the caterpillar.

 _“Getitoutgetitoutgetitout!”_ Lio screams, stomping his feet, sparks of neon fire flying from his fingertips and crackling along strands of his hair. Gueira grabs Lio’s shoulders and holds him still and upright. His whole little body is shaking and he’s doing that thing he does when he’s in extreme discomfort, rolling his shoulders violently and hyperextending them to press his shoulderblades together, fists curled and clenched tightly as his jaw. Meis carefully combs through Lio’s hair, which is all staticky and standing on end from the reflexive shocks of Promare. They arc from the stands to Meis’s fingers and he pays them no mind.

“I can’t find it,” Meis reports. “You got it out.”

 _“Are you sure?”_ Lio grits out.

Meis sighs. He combs through Lio’s hair again, raking his short nails across Lio’s scalp meticulously and flattening out his hair as best as he can. “Yes.”

Lio forces out a tense breath and extricates himself from Gueira’s grip, running his own hands obsessively over his hair and making it puffy again from static. He’s sparking like a Tesla coil. His eyes are screwed tightly shut and Gueira seems to realize at that moment he’s still holding Lio’s shades, so he presses them onto Lio’s face.

“Do you wanna keep walking or…?” Meis asks.

Lio purses his lips. “Too many bugs out here.” He starts back down the trail the way they came, the air fizzing and glittering around him from all the neon-pink and electric-blue sparks he’s putting out.

“Are you okay, Boss? You’re kinda… fizzy,” Gueira observes. This is definitely new and unusual.

“I’m trying to control myself,” Lio says tersely over his shoulder. The skin of his upper arms, where his fingers dig in, is glowing. The Promare are right up under the surface of Lio’s skin, fluorescing in jewel pinks and teals, straining to burst free and protect him from what they perceive as a grave threat to their host.

“Oh,” Gueira says, realizing at the same moment as Meis that if Lio weren’t holding his Promare back right now, they’d all be enveloped in an inferno. The rest of the walk back to the house is brusque and bug-free, though Gueira and Meis will never tell Lio the number of falling caterpillars they saw incinerated by his protective, sparky Promare halo.

Once back in the house, Lio tosses his sunglasses on the kitchen counter and disappears into the bathroom for ten minutes. Meis hears the tub running. When Lio re-emerges, his hair is up in a towel.

“Wanna drink?” Gueira offers from the kitchen. Lio hums in assent. It’s still a nice day so the three sit out on their back porch with afternoon mimosas in the gentle sunlight. The Promare’s healing factor renders them immune to sunburns, something Lio definitely takes for granted with his albinism. Though he looks much calmer than he had forty-five minutes ago, Meis eyes the way the Boss’s fingertips glow where he delicately holds the stem of his glass. Every time Lio pushes up his glasses or readjusts the towel on his head, the brush of his fingers against his face leave glowing trails under his skin.

“Have you ever seen that bioluminescent algae?” Gueira offers up an apparent non-sequitur. Lio gives a puzzled frown and a little shake of the head. “We get it in the Gulf and it’s really pretty at night, you can see all the wakes of the boats. You sure you haven’t seen it, Meisie?”

“I’m from inland,” Meis answers. “Closer to Kansas than the Gulf.”

“Ah, well,” Gueira shrugs. “It looks a lot like what your fire’s doing, Boss.” He leans over the arm of his chair, hand poised above Lio’s arm, silently waiting for permission. Lio tips his head. Gueira runs his four fingers up Lio’s forearm, grinning at the streaks of rosy-blue light it leaves on Lio’s skin. The light fades quickly, so Gueira rubs his palm up and down Lio’s arm rapidly to make the whole thing glow. Then he writes out _MAD BURNISH_ and, after that fades, _FUCK FREEZE FORCE,_ though “force” ends up crammed on Lio’s delicate wrist and spills over onto the back of his hand.

“Okay, okay, I’m not an Etch-a-Sketch,” Lio laughs, batting Gueira away.

“It’s neat though,” Gueira says, unable to resist drawing a smiley-face on Lio’s upraised palm.

“D’ya think it’s permanent?” Meis asks, leaning over now to gently prod glowing polka-dots into existence on Lio’s other arm. 

Lio shakes his head. “It’ll stop once I calm down. I’m still rather keyed up, it’s--” his whole body goes rigid and lights up like a glow stick as his hand brushes against the hem of his shirt.

“Not a caterpillar,” Meis says. “Just your shirt.”

Lio forces out a breath, his glow fading.

“You look like a firefly when you do that,” Gueira laughs, then his eyes light up.

“Don’t you dare,” Lio growls.

“Firefly!” Gueira hoots. “You’re our little firefly!”

“I’m twenty years older than you!” Lio howls.

“Yeah, but you’re so lil!” Gueira reaches for Lio’s arm again, presumably to write out _firefly,_ but Lio rips the towel off his head, damp chlorine-green hair kinked at crazy angles, and twists it menacingly into a whip.

“Fuck around and find out,” he says threateningly, but the hair kind of negates his words and both Gueira and Meis bust out laughing. “I hate both of you!” And then the damp towel goes flying through the air and cracks at both of them, sending them screaming with laughter and stinging towel-whip welts into the house with Lio hot on their heels.


End file.
